MARKETS / FINANCE

With every new year come a new round of bold predictions for financial markets.

As India gold prices dipped backed by a strengthening rupee, jewellers restocked for the upcoming wedding season in the world's biggest consumer of the precious metal, dealers said.

The Bernard Madoff bankruptcy trustee has sued California Attorney General Kamala Harris to stop her alleged interference with his efforts to recover money for the swindler's former customers.

Stock index futures pointed to a lower open on Thursday on renewed concerns about the euro zone's financial health, but encouraging employment data was expected to limit the decline.

The first batch of December sales results suggests that people were willing and able to shop if retailers made it worth the effort with discounts.

New claims for unemployment benefits fell by 15,000 last week in the latest sign the labor market was improving and could help the country resist the effects of a likely euro zone recession.

Stock index futures fell on Thursday as renewed concerns about the euro zone's financial health pushed down the euro and European shares.

Japan Airlines plans to raise more than 500 billion yen ($6.5 billion) ahead of re-listing its shares as early as September, a source with knowledge of the matter said, marking a sharp turnaround for the carrier following its bankruptcy in 2010.

French borrowing costs rose slightly when the euro zone's second-largest economy sold debt for the first time this year on Thursday but demand was solid despite concerns the country could lose its AAA credit rating.

PepsiCo Inc is considering cutting about 4,000 jobs and reducing pension contributions in order to boost its earnings, the New York Post said, citing sources close to the situation.

A March summit of European Union leaders will discuss increasing the firepower of the bloc's permanent rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism, to cope with an upcoming glut of sovereign debt maturities, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Thursday.

France was expected to draw solid demand for its 10-year bonds at an auction on Thursday, despite the lingering threat of a downgrade to its AAA credit rating, as yields offer an attractive premium to benchmark German bunds.

Gold prices rose Thursday as Chinese purchases of physical gold and concerns Iran might spark a regional conflict by attempting to block the Strait of Hormuz offset concerns over a Eurozone recession.

Concern about the appetite for euro zone sovereign debt pushed European stocks lower and hit the single currency on Thursday, with the first French bond auction of 2012 set to test how much progress policymakers have made in easing tensions.

Japan Airlines Co plans to relist its shares as early as September in a public offering that could raise up to 1 trillion yen ($13 billion), Bloomberg news reported on Thursday, marking the carrier's recovery from bankruptcy and restructuring.

Congressional investigators have stepped up their inquiry into the work of credit rating firms that examined MF Global's overly risky bets on European government bonds and whether they overlooked crucial information in their evaluations, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Asian shares and the euro eased on Thursday as concerns about the ability of euro zone countries to refinance their huge public debt dampened investors' appetite for risk ahead of a French bond auction later in the day.

BP's $20 billion oil spill fund said it had resumed payments to eligible victims on Wednesday after receiving clarification from a U.S. district court regarding an escrow account set up to cover certain legal expenses incurred by the plaintiffs' lawyers.

Boeing Co said it would close a plant in Wichita by the end of 2013 that employs more than 2,160 workers maintaining and converting planes for the military, part of a move to cut costs as the U. S. defense budget tightens.

New Jersey's legislature has briefly delayed a vote on a bill that would legalize online gambling but Governor Chris Christie said the state should become an epicenter for the business.

Eastman Kodak is preparing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing in case it is unable to sell its digital patents to raise capital, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

Blackstone Group LP will conclude fundraising for its latest buyout fund in January, raising just over $16 billion, three people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in a 4-year process challenged by the global financial crisis.

U.S. auto sales rose 10 percent in 2011 but major automakers forecast a slowdown in growth this year because of weak job growth and risks to the American economy from a slowdown in Europe.

The surprise departure of PayPal President Scott Thompson from eBay Inc could seriously set back any moves to spin-off the payments business as a separate company, investors and analysts said on Wednesday.

David J. Stern, who became one of the country's best-known foreclosure lawyers before shutting his business under regulatory pressure, has been sued for fraud by the publicly traded company he helped create to take on his now-defunct law firm's back-office operations.

U.S. online sales for the 2011 holiday season rose 15 percent to hit an all-time high, according to data firm comScore.

Major U.S. stock indexes were little changed in a low-volume session on Wednesday, but some investors were encouraged to see equities avoid a sell-off amid lingering euro zone's debt problems.

Comcast Corp, the largest U.S. cable operator, and Walt Disney Co on Wednesday said they had reached a comprehensive 10-year programming carriage deal for TV, Web and handheld devices.

Gold rose around 1 percent on Wednesday, breaking ranks with the euro as renewed hedge fund and technical buying put the precious metal on track for its fourth straight day of gains.